Who Will Be Remembered into the Future?

Meet Omer, my five years old son (in the picture above). He will be remembered for as long as humanity exists.

That’s pretty neat, isn’t it?

Let me explain why. Think of the great inventors, leaders and scientists of ages past: people like Alexander the Great, Isaac Newton, Plato and others. Most of them did not have a personal biographer looking over their shoulders, to record their great deeds. Even for those who did hire such a personal biographer, we only know today what they wanted us to know.

Now consider Omer. He is growing up in a period of time in which he is being monitored continuously. All the pictures I took of him, almost since the very moment he was born, are stored in Google’s and Facebook’s servers, and are being maintained and looked after continuously, so that they will be preserved for a very long time indeed. Every purchase I made for him using my credit card, has been recorded somewhere by a data merchant, and the information was sold to other companies.

As my son grows up, his smartphone will record his activities and health, his electronic devices will keep a close watch over him, and aerial drones in the sky will be able to record his movements on the ground. All of this information will be gathered effortlessly, and will be easily analyzed by AI engines to construct a picture of my son’s life.

So – in the future, we will all be remembered and recognized. Maybe not for our great inventions or prowess in battle, but for our personal, small and intimate stories and achievements. My son will know me – his father – as a real human being, full of nuances and quirks. He will know what I did tonight before going to bed, which websites I visited (yes, even if I used incognito mode – the data is still being retained by my internet service provider and Google), and what made me the man I was. And his kids – my grandchildren – will know my son’s story even better than he will know mine. And so on and on, into future generations.

In a way, I will never die for my son, and neither will you. Our stories will remain here to teach our children the lessons we’ve learned over our lives.